BY TOM WILSON
HOBART — Forestry Tasmania should change its name to Jackboot Tasmania, if its recent antics are anything to go by. In its latest move, the authority has resorted to unlawful threats and intimidation in a desperate attempt to cover up the truth about its proposed Southwood woodchip mill and wood-fired power station.
The project will destroy at least 600,000 tonnes of southern Tasmania's old growth forests a year. As part of a propaganda campaign to "sell" the project to the population, Forestry Tasmania's spin doctors have organised a series of taxpayer-funded coach tours of the proposed site.
"It's a great opportunity to listen with an open mind", state Forestry Tasmania's newspaper ads. "Please gather as much information as possible about this development before forming an opinion. Knowing the facts is crucial to making the right decision."
Forestry Tasmania is being very selective in which "facts" it wants the public to consider.
"The problem with these tours is that they only show you what they want you to see", said environmental activist Adam Burling. "For example, they don't show you the old growth forests that they want to destroy or the waters of the Huon River that they plan to pollute."
Huon Valley residents have responded by organising, at their own expense, an alternative tour to the proposed Southwood site. Dubbed "The Real Southwood Tour", it passes through the old growth forests that Forestry Tasmania wants to clear-fell and some of the streets that giant trucks will thunder along every few minutes.
On learning of the alternative tour, Forestry Tasmania's immediate response was to threaten prosecutions that could lead to hefty fines and even possible imprisonment if the residents went ahead with the tour.
Evidently, "knowing the facts is crucial" only as long as the Southwood spin doctors are able to control which facts people are exposed to.
Forestry Tasmania's legal brains claimed that residents would be in breach of the law unless they first obtained a prohibitively expensive commercial tour operator's licence before hiring a bus and driving into the forest. They also said that the proposed tour route took in Forestry Tasmania roads, which are private and to which the general public has no right of access.
These claims sit oddly with the fact that Forestry Tasmania is a state government department and contradicts its repeated and ridiculous propaganda claim that the new roads required for the Southwood project will also attract tourists to see the clear-felled regrowth forests.
Residents have decided to call Forestry Tasmania's bluff. "Our community will not be intimidated by Forestry Tasmania's jackboot tactics", said Burling. "The Real Southwood Tour will go ahead as planned, regardless of the threats."
Tour organisers have obtained legal advice that disagrees with Forestry Tasmania's outrageous interpretation of the law. When confronted with this, Forestry Tasmania backed down, claiming that someone had "made a mistake".
"They've made a mistake all right", Huon Valley resident and anti-Southwood campaigner Geoff Francis told Green Left Weekly. "Despite a prolonged and expensive campaign of disinformation and deceit, Forestry Tasmania has failed to win people over to their bogus arguments. This is why they have been compelled to resort to dictatorial tactics, which, like their other stunts, have backfired."